Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1887-07-11
PLOTS TO KILL JEFF DAVIS.
Charges that he Makes Against the Fed.
eral GOvernment-Noted Criminals Re.
leased to Assassinate Him-Recent In.
terviews with the Confederate Presi.
dent.
BALTIMORE, July 9,

BALTIMORE, July 8.
The Morning Herald of this city will pub,
llsh tomorrow a six column contribution Civ.
ing an account of recent important interview
with Jefferson Davis. In these interviews,
Mr.. Davis, among other things, charges that
the federal government conspired during the
war to have him asssssinated. On this sub.
ject Mr.. Davis says "While the confederate
government was at Montgomery, Ala, in
1861, received an anonymous letter from
Philadelphia, the substance of which was that
| the governor of Pennsylvania had released a
noted desperate from the penitentiary upon
| the condition that he would 60 to Montgom
cry and assassinate me, with the promise of a
reward of 100000 if he succeeded. After
his release the man stated that he could not
probably succeed alone, and gave the name
of another convict of character like his own.
with whose assistance he felt sure of success,
| and that the second convict was released to
accompany the first"
Mr.. Davis then told of many narrow es.
capes from the assassin's bullet, railroad
wrecks and other devices which were con
cocted to put an end to his life. OF one
would be assassin Mr.. Davis says: 81 di
rected him to be sent to Gen. Lee at Peters
burg, with an explanatory note and the hope
that he would be placed in the front rank to
stop bullet intended for a better man
What became of him l never learned. Mat
ters of larger Importance engrossed the atten
ton of Gen. Lee as well as of myself"
Mr.. Davis gives his motives and politicsl
status in 1861. and claims that he never was
a disunionist but that the northern senators
rejected at the time every proposition that
promised paciication. He refers to B F.
Buffers voting for him 81 times in 1860 at
Nh FL candidate Of the Damopra q
party for President to prevent disunion, and
declares that he did not desire to be president
of the confederacy. but that he took prompt
and, as be thought, adequate means, to pre-
vent it. After his auguration at Montgom-
erv all his efforts were directed towards Sc
curing for the seeding States peaceful
separation, though he never thought Of going
back into the union to escape last resort to
the arbitrament of arms.
Mr. Davis discussed his experience as sec
retarv of war in Mr.. Pierces cabinet and as
United States senator from Mississippi, his
career as president of the southern confeder
acy, and is eloquent in his praises of Gems.
Albert Sidney Johnston, Lee, Jackson and
A. p Hill. He said A. S. Johnston had no
peer on either side during the war, if he ever
had in American history, and his loss to the
confederacy WINS rreparabe. Lee was his
associate and friend at West Point, with
Leonidas Polk and James B. Magruder, and
there never was aught but harmony between
them.
Speaking of the seven days battles around
Richmond, Mr. Davis says Gen. Lee con-
ceived and executed the desperate plan to
turn the flank and rear to McClellan's army,
and added that the failure 10 annihilate the
federal army was due chiefly to the fact that
Gen. Lee had no map of the country below
Richmond, and that his army moved in igno-
rance of the country, and with guides who,
for the most part proved themselves utterly
inefficient. He says that Gen. Lees object
in retreating from Petersburg in the last days
of the war was to reach Danville, and there
unite with Gen. Johnston and crush Sherman
before Grant could Join him. He declares
that Mcclellan and Meade were the two best
federal generals, and if the former had been
permitted to carry on his campaign against
Richmond as he had planned it, and had re-
ceived the hearty support of the federal war
department, it would have resulted disastrous
ly to the confederates.